Free Republic

In the latest of a series of invasions into Sarah Palin’s personal life, hackers have broken into the Republican vice presidential candidate’s private e-mail account, and a widely read Web site has published screen grabs from it. An article Wednesday in Gawker.com posts family photos and snapshots of e-mail exchanges the Alaska governor had with colleagues. Gawker says the-email account has since been shut down, but it will leave the images up on its site for all to see. “Here are the screenshots of the emails saved before the account went dark, along with the contact list. It’s newsworthy...

If this is true, I don't see how the guy wins even one state in November. From the New York Post. While campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July. "He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and...

Last updated: 11:24 am September 8, 2008 Posted: 4:30 am September 8, 2008 THE Post today enthusiastically urges the election of Sen. John S. McCain as the 44th president of the United States. McCain's lifelong record of service to America, his battle-tested courage, unshakeable devotion to principle and clear grasp of the dangers and opportunities now facing the nation stand in dramatic contrast to the tissue-paper-thin résumé of his Democratic opponent, freshman Sen. Barack Obama.

MSNBC is removing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as the anchors of live political events, bowing to growing criticism that they are too opinionated to be seen as neutral in the heat of the presidential campaign. David Gregory, the NBC newsman and White House correspondent who also hosts a program on MSNBC, will take over during such events as this fall's presidential and vice presidential debates and election night. The move, confirmed by spokesmen for both networks, follows increasingly loud complaints about Olbermann's anchor role at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Olbermann, who regularly assails President Bush and GOP nominee...

I hope it is OK with mods to post a thread where we can make comments on convention coverage. If not, please delete.

HOUSTON — In a case that has drawn international attention, Texas executed José E. Medellín on Tuesday night in defiance of an international court ruling and despite pleas from the Bush administration for a new hearing. The execution came just before 10 p.m. Central time, shortly after the United States Supreme Court denied a last request for a reprieve. Protesters for and against the death penalty clamored in the rain outside the Huntsville Unit, about 70 miles north of Houston, where Mr. Medellín was executed by lethal injection. “I’m sorry my actions caused you pain,” he said to the witnesses...

I am not sure what the response will be while the Olympics are there, but I would have to say that when the games are over, the Chinese authorities will be playing their own games..........war games, with in the Muslim community of Xinjiang.

The District, rebuffed by the Supreme Court last month in a landmark decision on its 32-year-old gun ban, could soon be headed back to court over a new gun law that could take effect as early as Wednesday. The D.C. Council will vote Tuesday on emergency legislation that will require handgun owners to keep their weapons disassembled or under lock and key in what gun rights advocates see as direct defiance of the Supreme Court ruling. That ruling said the District could not bar residents from "rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday that child rapists cannot be executed, concluding capital punishment is reserved for murderers. Patrick Kennedy, 43, was on Louisiana's death row for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. The ruling stemmed from the case of Patrick Kennedy, who has been on Louisiana's death row since 2003, when he was sentenced to be executed for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that "evolving standards of decency" in the United States forbid capital punishment for any crime other than murder. Execution of Patrick Kennedy, the justices ruled, would...

(CNSNews.com) - An appeal by environmental groups to stop the federal government from waiving regulations during construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border was turned down by the Supreme Court on Monday. In its decision, the high court rejected a plea from Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club to challenge a provision of a 2005 law that gives the U.S. Department of Homeland Security the authority to bypass environmental and other laws obstructing completion of the border fence. The controversy began after Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, invoked the REAL ID Act while issuing...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican White House candidate John McCain will promise on Tuesday to lower corporate tax rates if he wins the U.S. presidency and ease the tax burden on middle-class workers to help revive the faltering economy. The Arizona senator, who has wrapped up his party's presidential nomination, also would propose a simpler, alternative tax system and insist that chief executives' pay and severance packages have shareholder approval. "No matter which of us wins in November, there will be change in Washington. The question is what kind of change?" McCain will tell a conference for small businesses, referring to...

BOSTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor Tuesday in what could be the grim final chapter in a life marked by exhilarating triumph and shattering tragedy. Some experts gave the liberal lion less than a year to live. Doctors discovered the tumor after the 76-year-old senator and sole surviving son of America's most storied political family suffered a seizure over the weekend. The diagnosis cast a pall over Capitol Hill, where the Massachusetts Democrat has served since 1962, and came as a shock to a family all too accustomed to sudden, calamitous news. "Ted...

BAGHDAD (AP) — The number of American troops and Iraqi civilians killed in the war fell in September to levels not seen in more than a year. The U.S. military said the lower count was at least partly a result of new strategies and 30,000 additional U.S. forces deployed this year. Although it is difficult to draw conclusions from a single month's tally, the figures could suggest U.S.-led forces are making headway against extremist factions and disrupting their ability to strike back. The U.S. military toll for September was 64, the lowest since July 2006, according to figures compiled by...

Norman Hsu, the Democratic fund-raiser who was a fugitive from the law, was charged today with bilking investors of at least $60 million in a nationwide Ponzi scheme, tens of thousands of dollars of which was funneled by way of “straw donors” to candidates for national office in violation of federal election law. In a complaint unsealed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Hsu, 56, was accused of strong-arming his investors into giving money to various political causes and to candidates running for president, Senate and the House of Representatives. One of those candidates was Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton...

Bomb kills anti-Syrian lawmaker By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer BEIRUT, Lebanon - A bomb rocked a Christian suburb east of the Lebanese capital Wednesday, killing an anti-Syrian lawmaker and six other people, security officials said. Antoine Ghanem is the eighth prominent anti-Syrian figure assassinated since 2005. Ghanem, 64, a member of the right-wing Christian Phalange Party, was targeted by the bomb, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The Voice of Lebanon radio station, which is owned by the Phalange party, confirmed Ghanem's death. The identities of the...

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (AP) - A truck carrying explosives for the mining industry exploded after running into another vehicle in northern Mexico, killing at least 37 people, a federal police official said Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Sept. 7) - Disgraced Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu was arrested after the Hong Kong native failed to show up for a court appearance related to a felony theft conviction.

After spending months testing the waters for a presidential run, Sen. Fred Thompson has made his candidacy official. "I am running for president of the United States," he said during a taping of NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," drawing applause and cheers from the audience. Thompson will also talk about his decision to join the race for the Republican presidential nomination in a webcast scheduled to go online early Thursday. A five-day campaign tour will follow Thompson's announcement, sources said last week. Thompson will stump in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. Then it's on to Lawrenceburg,...

ABC News' Jack Date and Theresa Cook Report: Veteran Ohio Republican Rep. Paul Gillmore is dead at the age of 68. Two members of Gillmore's staff found the Congressman's body at the bottom of a staircase in his suburban Washington home at 11:10 Wednesday morning, according to Arlington County, Va. Police Department spokesman John Lysle. The staff members stopped by Gillmore's home to check on him after he missed a hearing, Lysle said. Gillmore, who was serving his tenth term as a Congressman, was a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which had a 10:30 hearing scheduled Wednesday morning....

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations officials found vials of dangerous chemicals, which had been removed from Iraq a decade ago, in a U.N. building in New York, but U.N. officials said on Thursday there was no danger. The FBI was called in to help remove the substances. The material was phosgene, a chemical warfare agent, U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe told a news conference. The inspections unit said in a statement that the chemicals had been found last Friday. The Iraqi weapons inspectors came across the material as they were closing their offices, which are housed in a building near...

U.S. Forces Free 7 Iranians Detained in Raid on Baghdad Hotel August 29, 2007 BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. troops released seven Iranians early Wednesday, hours after detaining them at a central Baghdad hotel, an Iranian embassy official said. An Iranian diplomat, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that one of those released contacted the embassy Wednesday morning to say that they have been handed over to Iraqi authorities. American troops raided Baghdad's Sheraton Ishtar hotel and took away a group of about 10 people late Tuesday. The diplomat said the seven Iranians included an embassy staffer...

Sen. Larry Craig Caught With His Pants Down The Nation -- Republican Idaho Senator Larry Craig is the latest Conflicted Conservative in Crisis to be caught with his pants down. According to Roll Call , Craig was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men's public restroom. He has pleaded guilty to the charge. Craig has faced pointed rumors of same-sex affairs in the past. Craig responded to these allegations with strident denials. Now, as details of Craig's recent arrest emerge, he seems increasinly cockeyed, so to speak. This...

*snip* Attorney General Gonzales Resigns Controversy Plagued Top Law Enforcement Official By PIERRE THOMAS, JASON RYAN, THERESA COOK and JACK DATE Aug. 27, 2007 Gonzales will hold a press conference at 10:30 a.m. at the Justice Department to announce the resignation; President Bush is also expected to make a statement at 11:30 a.m. *snip* The embattled attorney general had withstood months of criticism from both sides of the aisle in Congress for a variety of missteps. Lawmakers blasted Gonzales after his department fired at least nine U.S. attorneys last year and accused him of misusing terrorist surveillance programs. Most recently...

LIMA (Reuters) - Two powerful earthquakes within minutes of each other struck Peru on Wednesday shaking buildings in the capital and cutting power in some areas. The first quake, with a magnitude of 7.7, hit about 20 miles (33 km) west of Chincha Alta, at a shallow 11.2 miles (18 km) from the earth's surface, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It said the second had a magnitude of 7.5. Office buildings in Lima shook in at least two different bouts that lasted around 20 seconds each, and workers ran out into the streets in fear, witnesses said. The USGS says...

AMES, Iowa - Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won an easy and expected victory in a high-profile Iowa Republican Party Straw Poll on Saturday, claiming nearly twice as many votes as his nearest rival.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has criticized Senator Barack Obama for saying he would rule out using nuclear weapons to root out terrorists in Afghanistan or Pakistan, made a similar comment regarding Iran last year, before she became a presidential candidate. “I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table,” Mrs. Clinton told Bloomberg Television in an interview in April 2006, responding to a question about how the Bush administration would try to prevent Iran from building up its nuclear program. Last week, Mr. Obama said it would be a “profound mistake” for the United States to use nuclear weapons...

WASHINGTON - Chief Justice John Roberts was taken to a hospital in Maine on Monday after falling while on vacation, the Supreme Court told NBC News. Roberts, 52, fell at his summer home between 2 and 3 p.m. ET off Port Clyde. The court said he was taken to a hospital as a precaution. An emergency medical technician said Roberts was conscious and alert during the ambulance ride, NBC News' Pete Williams reported. Story continues below ↓ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- advertisement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said she did not know how he fell or what injuries he might have suffered.

More developments in connection with "Al Qaeda Cell in the U.S. Or On Its Way, According to New Intel," by Brian Ross for ABC News' The Blotter: Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here. The White House has convened an urgent multi-agency meeting for Thursday afternoon to deal with the new threat. Top intelligence and law enforcement officials have been told to assemble in the Situation Room to report on: -- what steps can be taken to minimize or...

Fox News and MSNBC are reporting that the hour of reckoning is at hand. Stand by for details, although I think we already know most of them. Update: “Quick legal status.” A bipartisan group of senators reached agreement with the White House Thursday on an immigration overhaul to grant quick legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S. and fortify the border against new ones… It set the stage for what promises to be a bruising battle next week in the Senate on one of Bush’s top non-war priorities. The group of lawmakers had been haggling over...

Sens. Reid, Durbin, Stabenow, Schumer, and Dorgan sent a letter to Disney today containing the following passages:... Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation. The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda called on non-Muslims especially in the United States to convert to Islam and abandon their 'misguided' ways or else suffer, according to a video tape posted on a Web site on Saturday. The speaker was identified as Azzam the American, also known as Adam Yahiye Gadahn -- an Islamic convert from California wanted for questioning by the FBI and who U.S. authorities believe to be involved in an information campaign for al Qaeda. "To Americans and the rest of Christendom we say, either repent (your) misguided ways and enter into the light of truth or...

Video of kidnapped journalists released A previously unknown Palestinian group released the first video Wednesday of two kidnapped Fox News journalists and demanded that Muslim prisoners in U.S. jails be released within 72 hours in exchange for the men, a Palestinian news agency reported. In the video, Steve Centanni, 60, of the San Francisco area, and cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand, appeared to be in good health, seated on the floor in sweat suits against a black background. No armed men were shown. "Our captors are treating us well," Centanni said, adding that they had access to clean...

JERUSALEM - Israeli army units reached the Litani River on Saturday, less than 24 hours after the government ordered an operation to march toward the river in a final push against entrenched Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel Radio reported. The units were part of a massive force that flooded into Lebanon, trying to seize as much territory as possible before a U.N. cease-fire comes into effect. The objective was to control southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, about 18 miles from the Israeli border, before handing over the area to the Lebanese army and U.N. troops. Meanwhile, both sides in the...

ALBANY, N.Y. - The top courts in two states dealt setbacks to the gay marriage movement Thursday, with New York's highest court ruling same-sex unions are not allowed under state law and the Georgia Supreme Court reinstating a voter-approved ban on gay marriage. In New York, the Court of Appeals said in a 4-2 decision that the state's marriage law is constitutional and clearly limits marriage to a union between a man and a woman. Any change in the law would have to come from the state Legislature, Judge Robert Smith said. "We do not predict what people will think...

Candidate's move to Virginia doesn't negate his ballot position, judge rules. The Texas Republican Party cannot replace former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on November's ballot, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks ruled today. The Texas Democratic Party sued to keep the indicted Sugar Land Republican on the ballot because party officials believed that their candidate Nick Lampson could more easily defeat DeLay instead of a GOP replacement. Sparks' order prevents state Republican Chairwoman Tina Benkiser from completing the process of naming a DeLay successor. Although the Republican Party is expected to appeal, Sparks' order keeps the campaigns of possible GOP candidates...

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) - The Florida Supreme Court has thrown out a $145 billion punitive damage award against cigarette makers - and decertified the case as a class action -- in a huge victory for the tobacco industry. "We unanimously conclude that the punitive damages award is excessive as a matter of law," the court said in a ruling handed down in the Engle case on Thursday. The news sent shares of No. 1 tobacco company Altria , +6.6%) up 5.5% to $77.44 while Reynolds American (RAI : reynolds american 119.21, +4.85, +4.2%) gained 4.8% to $119.79. ) U.S. stocks boosted...

PARIS (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators joined rallies across France on Tuesday in a fresh assault by students and striking public sector workers on a youth hire-and-fire contract. Two months of sometimes violent demonstrations took their toll on the popularity of the contract's main champion, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, whose ratings in a new poll slid 14 points in a month to 28 percent in March. Unions said the turnout should reach the three million figure seen in last week's protests, among the biggest in France's 48-year-old Fifth Republic. Police estimates were not immediately available but were...

Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills.

ERUSALEM - A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded pedestrian mall near Tel Aviv's old central bus station Thursday, and at least 10 people were wounded, police said. A witness, who identified himself only as Itzik, said he was eating at a fast-food stand when he began suspecting the man standing next to him. "All of a sudden, a policeman came. He pulled him (the suspect) out, and started searching him," he told Israel Radio. The suspect fled, Itzik said, and five minutes later, the explosion was heard. The blast came a week before Palestinian parliament elections, and...

BREAKING NEWS NBC, MSNBC and news services Updated: 10:50 a.m. ET Dec. 30, 2005 WASHINGTON - The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation to see who disclosed details about a secret domestic eavesdropping operation, department officials said Friday. “We are opening an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified materials related to the NSA,” one official said, referring to the National Security Agency

WILMER, Texas — A bus carrying elderly evacuees from Hurricane Rita caught fire and then was rocked by explosions early Friday on a gridlocked highway near Dallas, killing as many as 24 people, authorities said. "Deputies were unable to get everyone off the bus," Dallas County Sheriff's Department spokesman Don Peritz said. He said he believed 24 people were killed, but added that that number could change. The bus was carrying 43 people who had been traveling since Thursday from a nursing home or managed-care facility near Houston, Peritz said. Early indications were that the bus caught fire because of...